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Websleuths News

Join Websleuths Radio for the final discussion of THE KILLING SEASON
with Josh Zemam, Rachel Mills and special guests including Bob Kolker author of Lost Girls

I wonder about the little sister too. The news articles imply that Ann Marie and her sister Mary had separate rooms, but both were on the upstairs level of the house. Mary was awake for at least some of the night, crying about the cast on her arm. I wonder if they ever asked the sister if she heard or saw anything...I can't find any mention of it.

Tacoma, Wash. - Mr. and Mrs. Donald Burr tucked their eight-year-old daughter Ann Marie safely into bed on a stormy night last August. They heard her prayers, kissed her goodnight and turned out the light, just as they had in turn for each of their three other children. Mary, 3, was in an adjoining upstairs bedroom. Julie, 7, and Greg, 5, were in the basement bedroom.

Sometime before 5 a.m. Ann Marie carried little Mary to Mr. and Mrs. Burr's downstairs bedroom because Mary was restless and couldn't sleep. Mrs. Burr took both of them back upstairs. By dawn Ann Marie had vanished. She hasn't been seen since.

"When Mary came to our bedroom again, Ann wasn't with her and I took her back to bed. I looked in on Ann and she was gone," Mrs. Burr said.

...

Chief of Detectives R J Drost said the abductor didn't leave "five cents worth of clues" when he or she entered the Burr home through the window, walked directly to Ann Marie's bedroom took her away on the night of August 30-31.

A piece of woolen cloth torn from the kidnaper's clothes and left hanging on a window nail is all police have. Not even a muddy shoe mark or fingerprints.

...

Mrs. Burr said she and her husband sleep with their bedroom door open as do the children. "But we couldn't hear a thing that night. Not a thing."

...

Drost is working on the possibility that a person who was familiar with the Burr home and who may have known the family years ago may be involved.

If this happened today people would immediately suspect one or both parents. Is there some reason why the parents weren't suspect in this case? I know child abductions from the home by strangers happen, but wouldn't the first assumption be that something happened within the home and covered up? Were the parents ever questioned in such a manner?

After reading up on the case, I don't think the parents had anything to do with it. Whenever I read a quote from the parents, or hear from someone who has interviewed them, I can just tell that they are grieving the loss of their daughter and looking for answers. An excerpt from a blog that was posted earlier:

Beverly and husband Donald requested and passed their polygraphs. As months unraveled into years, the Burrs would endure unconfirmed sightings, bogus ransom demands, and an imposter claiming to be Ann Marie.
But the true outrage was the unknown fate of their firstborn daughter. “We were always looking or always doing something. We never forgot.” says Beverly. They stayed in their tainted home for six years in case Ann showed up, keeping their old phone number after they moved.

After reading that blog, I can see how it would be plausible for Ted Bundy to be the girl's killer. It seems like it would be quite a coincidence for them to live so near to one another and him not be involved. And if he was a peeping tom, he might have spotted Anne Marie and gotten the basic layout of the house through the window.

However, one thing bothers me. Could a 15-year-old kid who is a first-time murderer have the skills to abduct, murder, and dispose of a child with no clues left behind other than a shoeprint? Where could he, a 15-year-old boy, have put her body where nobody could find it in almost half a century?

Maybe they should check the grounds and crawl space around Bundy's old house there. I agree, I think it would be difficult for a 15 year old to do all that and the body never be found. However, Bundy was special.

Ann Rule claimed that a former classmate of Ted Bundy's contacted her once. Ted allegedly offered to show the classmate "a dead body." His classmate declined and the subject never came up again. This would have been around the time Ann Marie went missing. Ann Rule wasn't able to get any more info, though, because she said the woman kind of freaked and stopped writing her.

In that blog I mentioned earlier, there is a response from someone who lived 2 blocks from the Burr house when Ann Marie disappeared. One thing that is mentioned is a building at the University of Puget Sound, about 4 blocks from the Burr house, which was having its foundation poured later that day, after Ann Marie disappeared. Supposedly as Ann Marie's father was searching the neighborhood for her, he saw Ted Bundy staring into the excavation of the building. Some people now believe that her body is inside the foundation of this building (McIntyre Hall).

I just watched the A&E biography on Ted Bundy. By this time he was already an expert shoplifter, burglar, etc. It is also known that he could come across as very charming. If Ann Marie knew and trusted him already, it's possible he could have asked her to come with him, made up some story about something he needed her help with. He could have lured her to University of Puget Sound and committed the crime right there.

Moved from LTWH board to here for discussion, originally posted by Be Adequite!

Missing/cold case- WA state- Ann Marie Burr
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Marie Burr- Tacoma, WAhttp://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/burr_ann.html
An 8 year old girl vanishes from her house in the middle of the night...Was she the first victim of a then 14 year old Ted Bundy, who lived only blocks from her home?...Perhaps one day we'll know the truth...

Ann Rule claimed that a former classmate of Ted Bundy's contacted her once. Ted allegedly offered to show the classmate "a dead body." His classmate declined and the subject never came up again. This would have been around the time Ann Marie went missing. Ann Rule wasn't able to get any more info, though, because she said the woman kind of freaked and stopped writing her.

It bothers me that Bundy claimed innocence. Killing a girl at such a young age and getting away with utterly would have added to the Bundy mystique, and god knows he was a huge fan of his own mystique.

I wonder if Bundy didn't see someone else kill her. Bundy was a night owl, maybe he was wandering around his neighborhood and came across Anne Marie's abduction and/or murder.

The Bundy Factor...

Originally Posted by AMP1979

It bothers me that Bundy claimed innocence. Killing a girl at such a young age and getting away with utterly would have added to the Bundy mystique, and god knows he was a huge fan of his own mystique.....

When Ted finally started to talk about his crimes, he tended to speak in the third person and gave information as if he was an expert or consultant of the FBI. In the end, he did admit to some, but not others, even though others were found in the same places as girls he admitted to having killed.

One thing that these dirtbags often do is deny killing small children, even when it is known that they did kill them. This may be in some sick way how they maintain that "mystique" and a higher status in prison. Somehow prisoners look up to a serial killer of adults or older kids on death row, but have no respect or admiration for a child killer.

After reading "The Stranger Beside Me," I do think it's a possibility that Bundy could have done it. Ted was (and I still feel is) way different then other serial killers. A relative of his mentions a disturbing incident that happened when Ted was only 3 years old, so in light of that I do think it's possible that he could have been involved in this case.

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.---Patrick Moynihan
Living in the